


Pretty Girls Keep One Foot on the Floor

by Enisy



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Kyubey is Awful, Post-Rebellion Story, Repaying Debt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23155006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enisy/pseuds/Enisy
Summary: Madoka wants to spend more time with Kyubey, help Sayaka, kiss Homura again by the school track, but those actions only seem to increase the distance in her friend’s eyes. No good deed goes unpunished; no bad deed goes unrewarded. Post-Rebellion story.
Relationships: Akemi Homura/Kaname Madoka
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	Pretty Girls Keep One Foot on the Floor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HandmaidenOfHorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/gifts).



“Are you learning about the second law of thermodynamics?”

Kyubey was taking an unusual interest in her Physics homework; it made Madoka smile. When they first met, his strange appearance and telepathic communication had frightened her – they still did, sometimes – but he had proven a true companion to her and an important friend.

And he was so cute!

“Not yet,” she said, chewing on her pencil tip. The school rooftop delighted her this time of day, frilled yellow and pink like a bridesmaid. “We are revising Newton’s laws of motion. I guess the laws of thermodynamics are coming up, too, but I haven’t checked. I… don’t like to skip ahead.”

Both sets of Kyubey’s ears wiggled happily. Meanwhile, the sky opened up and a cascade of white, particulate sand trickled onto a nearby building, as if from an enormous hourglass.

Another RSA.

“That’s pretty mild, as far as random spatial anomalies go,” said Kyubey, following her gaze. “Better this than the rain of tomatoes.”

“I agree.” The tomatoes had made such a mess of her uniform the other day! Her father had joked about her successfully surviving the zombie apocalypse, while Kyoko had lectured her about wasting food. “Sometimes I wish –”

“Yes?”

She forgot what she wanted to say. “Never mind,” she giggled in embarrassment and stood up, linking her hands behind her back. “Homura-chan’s waiting for me.”

_They kissed once by the school track._

_It was an accident. Madoka had injured herself during PE and was going home early, so she conscientiously hugged her friend goodbye – and Homura leaned in to peck her forehead, but she bent her head at an unexpected angle and they locked lips. Madoka, of course, blushed to the roots of her hair. The kiss went on too long. When they parted, she wondered, briefly, if this would alter their relationship – but the pain attendant in Homura’s eyes and mouth told her they wouldn’t be doing anything like that again, not ever._

“Did you learn about the second law of thermodynamics?”

Madoka put a hand to her chest – he’d startled her. “Not today, Kyubey, sorry!” She kicked her shoes off with a sigh of relief, and dropped her backpack on the bed, where he was already sitting.

“What _do_ they teach you in that school of yours?” He lifted and replaced his paws a few times, as though making his way through an adhesive bog. “If it were up to me –”

“ _Get away from her_.”

Both girl and monster turned toward the voice: one with concern, the other with indifference. The newly arrived Homura tilted her chin, and it was as if there were a string tying it to Kyubey’s temple: he inclined his head and leaped out of the open window.

Madoka’s mood took a nosedive. Poor Kyubey! He didn’t deserve such treatment. She had inquired after their quarrel a few times but received only vague aphorisms in response. ‘Don’t let that smile fool you.’ ‘Kyubey is not your friend.’ ‘That creature is not what it seems.’

“How many times have I told you not to trust that thing?” Homura berated her this time, too, making her way back toward the hall. (It didn’t occur to Madoka to ask why she’d entered her house, her _bedroom_ in the first place – it was Homura.) “You can’t possibly be this naïve.”

Madoka tried to listen, but something was diverting her attention. How strange – an RSA, so close after the other one. Just for a second, her friend’s dark, silky, tender crown seemed to have sprouted horns.

_Madoka loved Homura dearly, but sometimes she was scared of her, too. When she got that hard look in her eye and her voice dropped an octave, she would remember that, for all the time they spent together, she didn’t know her all that well. On such occasions, she’d try to assuage her friend with a kind word or a pat on the back, but sometimes that made matters worse – sometimes Homura bit her lip and jerked away, mumbling: “Get a_ clue _, Madoka.”_

“Something’s wrong here,” Sayaka said, a propos of nothing. The pair of them were eyeballing a tuxedoed, waltzing cat, which had materialized in the yard a moment ago. “Don’t you think so?”

“Umm… I don’t know much about waltz, but I do think you need a partner for it…”

“Not _that_.” Sayaka waved her hand dismissively. “These RSAs. What’s the deal with them, anyway?”

“Well.” Madoka put a finger to her chin. “Our Physics teacher said they are signs of quantum superimposition, which becomes visible to the naked eye when –”

“I _know_ what the teacher said. But, Madoka, don’t you remember a time when there _were_ no RSAs?”

She shook her head no, though there was a niggling doubt inside of her. The cat seemed to wink at her as it swayed, alone, to its inaudible tune. Madoka really felt sorry for it. Despair, solitude, hatred, fear – logically, she knew she couldn’t cure the world’s maladies, and yet, somehow, she felt singularly suited to do so. Was that a sign of arrogance?

_“Homura-chan, that’s not how the game is played!” Madoka screamed with indignation and delight._

_“Says who?”_

_“The_ rulebook _!” She waved it above her head with pathos, like the flag of a small region declaring independence._

_Homura smiled. “A game not worth cheating in is a game not worth playing.”_

_“You don’t really believe that, Homura-chan.”_

_“No. I don’t.” She had composed a melded_ pung _of dragon tiles, two of which Madoka had seen her pull from her lap. “But sometimes the rules are unfair.”_

Kyubey lay in Madoka’s arms, a cast of pure contentment on his angelic face.

“You really don’t see it?” asked Sayaka, clutching her head as if in pain. “It’s at the tip of my tongue, but I can’t get a hold of it. It’s like I’m jousting, and when I try to make contact with my lance, my horse swerves clear of the opponent and runs into a lake…”

Kyubey glanced at Sayaka out of the wing of his eye. Madoka couldn’t tell what he was thinking; maybe he just didn’t understand metaphors.

“Would you like to remember?” he asked, rather incongruously.

The blue-haired girl frowned. “What?”

“Would you?”

He squirmed off Madoka’s embrace and padded to the corridor. With a quizzical raise of her eyebrows, Sayaka followed.

They spoke between themselves for some time after that.

_Their principal’s viral DDR video having been sufficiently dissected, Mami excused herself to make more tea. Kyoko and Sayaka had left together, so the only one still keeping Madoka company was Homura, who looked very intense, even by her standards. Mami had put on a ballad, one that Madoka vaguely recognized from an anime ending. Soft and sweet. The song, her friend’s presence, the doilies and the porcelain, the cheerful bubbling from the next room, all blended together for Madoka like a grateful dream – a state of quiet joy._

_Homura’s next words jolted her back to reality._

_“Are you happy, Madoka?”_

_Where that question came from, or where it was going to, was anybody’s guess – and Madoka never managed to find out, because Mami burst back into the room (“Sorry, sorry, I forgot the teapot!”), and, upon departing, left silence and inertia behind._

_But that incident confirmed Madoka’s suspicion that Homura was holding a staring contest with the void – and losing._

Sayaka started missing class after that tête-à-tête with Kyubey.

It happened intermittently at first. “Oh, no, I’m fine,” she’d say when asked about her circumstances, flicking her wrist up and down. And once, “Madoka, I really think you should –” at which point Kyubey jumped on her shoulder, interrupting her. Moreover, the times Sayaka _did_ show up, there was a general sense of distraction about her – distraction and displacement, as if she were a pot without a lid.

(“The Magna Carta is important for the history of contract law because…? Sayaka-chan?”

“Huh?”

“Um… the question was about the Magna Carta and contract law. You wanted to practice, remember?”

“No idea,” she’d say, fidgeting. “Ask Kyubey. He knows all about that stuff.”)

Before long, the absences had lengthened, multiplied. It got to the point where Madoka hadn’t seen her in three weeks. Kyoko acted like nothing was amiss, while other people left get-well-soon cards and mixtapes on her school desk.

When she questioned Kyubey about her whereabouts, he said Akemi Homura had forbidden him to speak about these things. From this breadcrumb, Madoka extrapolated another likely route to Sayaka… and she approached her best friend, who seemed to be an authority on the matter.

Bad idea.

Homura tossed her hair and volleyed, “Stay out of this, Madoka. You’re way out of your depth.” She looked and sounded furious. “I’ll take care of everything.”

Grief settled in Madoka’s ribcage like a small, round, iron marble. She wanted to spend more time with Kyubey, help Sayaka, put her finger on Homura’s hidden pain, kiss her again by the school track, kiss her elsewhere – but those actions brought nothing but trouble, and increased the distance in her friend’s eyes.

Sure enough, following that exchange, Madoka stopped receiving visits from Kyubey. He had also vacated his usual haunts: the noodle shop, the school, the mall.

And she never saw Sayaka again, either.

_Madoka looked up to Homura like no one else: she was such a strong person, clever, beautiful and at ease with herself. Confident – maybe to the point of hauteur – but for good reason. Only once did she see her cry: a sight as surreal as melting clocks._

_“If you knew – if you remembered. What I’ve done. You’d never look at me with those eyes again.”_

_A bolt from the blue, delivered during their weekly meeting for tea and cake. Nothing in Madoka’s life had prepared her to deal with such a proclamation: she had no reference point, no context, neither a shape to draw around these words nor the ink to draw it with._

_No, that wasn’t true._

_There had been one or two events that might be related to this, in some roundabout way. That time Madoka had gone to the flower field and seen an RSA of a colossal, elongated white shape, and Homura in a cosplayer’s outfit. That time she’d heard her threaten Kyubey, who replied “You said_ Madoka _was off-limits, but not the other four.”_

 _Nevertheless – nevertheless, her voice was full of conviction when she answered, “Please don’t feel forced to keep secrets, Homura-chan. Whatever it is you’ve done, whatever you_ will _do, doesn’t matter to me. Is that wrong?” A fragile smile. “Well, then, let the celestial court punish me – I don’t care. I will_ always _be your friend.”_

The worst was yet to come. And it came suddenly, like a virus outbreak, or a call from an estranged family member.

Madoka had gone searching for Homura’s apartment, with a view to forming a study group – something she had never done before – but when she reached the coordinates provided to her by the teacher, she found Kyubey instead.

At first she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It had to be a dream – it had to be an RSA. Kyubey was strapped to the floor and above him, a giant pendulum swung back and forth, back and forth, descending a little bit more with every oscillation. There was a blade at the bottom. “Save me, Madoka,” he pled, and she didn’t have time to shut her eyes before the pendulum had neared his body, then grazed it, then sliced his head clean off.

Madoka clutched at her sides and screamed, but there was no end to the horror – for another Kyubey appeared out of nowhere. He doddered to his old corpse and he just… gobbled it all up. The bile rose up her throat. He hadn’t left a trace.

The new Kyubey tilted his head at her in that endearing manner she was beginning to distrust. Then, magical straps laid him flat, the pendulum reappeared… and it happened all over again.

“It’s a time loop,” a familiar voice came from behind, as the pendulum beheaded Kyubey a second time. “Despite my best efforts, I could not kill the little vermin – but this way, he won’t be able to bother anyone else.”

“Homura-chan,” gasped Madoka. “ _You_ did this?”

Homura remained silent.

 _How?_ she wanted to ask – and _why?_ – but she had to put that off, because the pendulum was on the move again: “Stop it _right now_!”

When Homura showed no inclination of doing so, Madoka launched herself at the torture device. She had no plan in mind – just blind hope, and courage, and two legs to carry her. She felt a give in the air, as if she’d penetrated some sort of barrier, and heard Homura hiss “ _Dammit_ ,” as she retrieved the small, helpless creature.

A very long pause ensued.

“How could you be so cruel?” Madoka curled her whole body around Kyubey, shielding him from further harm; her lips moved against his fur. “This isn’t like you. I don’t understand, Homura-chan…”

“Of course you don’t understand, Madoka.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “ _Understanding_ is an apple I’ve tried to keep out of your reach since time immemorial. I explored every contingency – I did everything in my power – but I see it’s too late now.” Homura loomed over the kneeling girl, shedding black feathers by the basketful. “I’ll make you understand.”

And just like that, Madoka remembered.

Everything.

At.

Once.

 _I get it now, Sayaka-chan,_ she thought, even in the midst of pain and disorientation. _This is what you meant before, isn’t it? This is what you wanted._ And Homura-chan… oh, the things she suffered – but then, the things she _did_ – the things she suffered – the things she did – again and again and again and –

_“Ms. Saotome says I squint a lot in class, and I might be short-sighted. She told my mom, so I have to go to the optometrist on Wednesday to get a test. Aw! This will really kill my chances of ever getting a love letter.”_

_“Do you know I used to wear glasses?”_

_“You did? Really? It’s hard to picture it, but – I bet you looked really cute, Homura-chan!”_

_“No, I didn’t._ You _would, Madoka – but I promise you’re not short-sighted.”_

_“How do you know?”_

_“Because I’m secretly the god of this universe.”_

_“Homura-chan! Oh, I could almost believe that about you! It seems you can do anything you set your mind to…”_

_“You should stay as you are, Kaname Madoka.”_

_“Are you happy, Madoka?”_

_“If you knew – if you remembered. What I’ve done. You’d never look at me with those eyes again.”_

It was Kyubey who snapped her out of it, in the end.

“Kaname Madoka,” he addressed her. His voice was wired straight into her brain. “In light of these circumstances, would you like to make a wish?”

“Nice try! She is wise to your game now, _Incubator_.”

“Normally, I would ask for your services as a magical girl in return,” he said, ignoring Homura and licking his paw, “but you did just save me from a nasty pinch. You get this one for free.”

Madoka had let go of Kyubey. She was wringing her hands so fiercely the knuckles had turned pale.

“A likely story.” Homura chuffed in disbelief. “I hope you’re not buying this, Madoka. Incubators are devoid of emotions. _Exploit_ them, that they can do very well, but they don’t experience them, or even understand them. Kyubey here is _incapable_ of gratitude.”

The defendant threw her a brief glance. His tail was fluttering hither and thither like a white flag. “Who said anything about gratitude? This is a” – he paused to determine the correct word – “contractual obligation.”

“ _Rubbish_.”

“I’ll take it,” said Madoka softly.

“You will?” cried Homura.

“You will?” wondered Kyubey.

“I’ll take it,” she repeated. An RSA was starting to take shape in the space between the three of them: a candy cane of a girl, all white and pink, who didn’t wear rings on her fingers but moons and quasars.

“Madoka, you have your memories back now,” Homura snarled. “You have _no excuse_ to be acting this dense.”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

“But he’s _lying_!”

“No, he’s not. Kyubey has always kept his promises.”

Homura’s voice was starting to break. “Madoka, don’t, _please_!”

In the RSA, Madoka floated among constellations, coiled her hair around the cycles that structured the world, had drafted the main twist and knew how the book ended, was pure and awesome and eternal. Her word was law. Her breaths were wind turbines that blew misery away.

Schoolgirl Madoka puffed up her chest.

“I wish for Homura-chan to get _her_ wish.”

And Kyubey complied, his rabbit eyes glistening like two great drops of blood.

_Entropy scatters to the four winds again, but pretty girls keep one foot on the floor._

The ambient sounds of the class were skewed to gossip and speculation today: the teacher had promised them a big announcement.

“Now, girls, I want you to remember that you must never date men who insist they can’t eat fried eggs done over hard…” The anecdote had aged about as well as the eggs in question. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s welcome our new transfer student!”

“My name is Akemi Homura. Pleased to meet you.”

After demonstrating the spelling of her name, wrapping up homeroom and indulging her new fans, she used the oldest trick in the book: “I’m not feeling very well. Would you allow me to excuse myself to the Nurse’s Office? – No, you needn’t trouble yourselves. I’ll ask the Nurse’s Aide to take me.”

With that, she marched up to Madoka. Kyubey was there, too – sitting on her desk, cheeky as you please – and everybody was aware, but no one spoke to him.

“Kaname Madoka-san. You are the Nurse’s Aide for this class, are you not?”

Hitomi looked sad; Sayaka wary and belligerent.

However, Madoka smiled brightly at the other girl.

“It’s okay, Homura-chan.” She got up from her desk and drew Homura into a warm, fierce hug. “I know who you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [enisywrites](https://enisywrites.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come on over if you want to drop me a prompt or a question, or to just say hi!


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